


Lost Nor Found

by evildoers



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2232795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evildoers/pseuds/evildoers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Queen Anne's Square, London, 1735.</p><p>In Which a Boy witnesses the Arrival of a Stranger on his father's Property and confronts him most Courageously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Nor Found

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The opening sentences are taken directly from Bowden's Forsaken novelisation for stylistic reasons; I did not write them.

_1735, Queen Anne’s Square. Continued._

"Tom?" I whispered.

There was no sound. The night was completely still: no birds, no animals, nothing. Nervous now, I was about to turn and leave, return to my house and to the safety of my warm bed, when I saw something. A shoe. It could have been mine, except Edith would never have let anything I wore get that muddy or worn. And besides, the shoe was attached to a bony ankle, and that to a torn trouser leg, and both likely belonged to the fist that shot out from the shadow of the tree towards me before I could shout an alarm.

I ducked, and did not call out. Looking back, the ducking was my mistake, because he caught me on the temple when he'd been going for the collar of my nightshirt. It smarted, but no more than a blow from the wooden swords in Father's lessons.

"Lord. Sorry, lad. Thought you were another of their damned lookouts," The voice, which was high and rough, confirmed the suspicions that the shoe, the trouser leg, and the fist had started. None of them belonged to Tom Barrett from next-door, but a stranger, a boy only a few years older than me. From the little I could see in the evening gloom, he did not look particularly sorry at all. He had a pistol tucked into a sash around his waist, and smirked as he leaned down and checked the bruise fast developing on my forehead. I suppose now that he was trying to seem friendly, except his smile had looked too sharp to be sincere; it made me want to put him in his place.

"Who are you? And what are you doing in our garden? Tell me, or I’ll wake the house.”

I thought that sounded like something Father would say. I tried not to look at the gun when he moved closer, and kept my expression level.

Until he took one more step and I saw the body he had been standing over. I did not recognise him, either, but his throat was torn open and his shirt dark with what could only be blood. His face was frozen in a mask of surprise. I bolted. The boy cursed and tried to grab me, but his foot caught on the man’s legs and in the seconds that gave me, I got around him and sprinted towards the open back door of the house.

I did not remember until much later that I had closed the door behind me when I went out, but I suppose it does not particularly matter.

“Haytham, stop!”

A gun went off, once, and then again, from inside the house. A woman shouted, and behind me the boy hollered another name that I didn’t catch, so focused was I on getting to Father, and safety. The servants’ door, I thought, then up to the first floor and three doors down. I could make it, maybe even fetch my sword.

An arm shot out from the doorway. Before I could twist away, my arms were pinned to my sides and my legs dangled a foot above the paving stones. In the sudden brightness of the kitchen, I could see nothing of my captor’s face; only that it was a woman. I kicked out, hoping that she would drop me, but she had only been buying time. Something jabbed the back of my neck, and the world went dark.


End file.
